In business, as in travel, milestones are a measure of progress. When you set milestones for your sales team, you tell them how much you expect sales to improve and how soon you expect to see the improvement. Crafting a good sales strategy requires choosing milestones that will challenge your team, without being so challenging that the goals are out of reach.

Research

Before setting milestones, do some research. Look at the sales figures for different territories and product lines over the past few years. Track how sales revenues have increased annually. Compare your company's performance with the industry standards. Talk to your sales staff about what they do during the work week -- sales calls, prospecting, closings -- and how much more they think they can do. This will give you a sense of what sort of milestones to set.

Set Milestones

The Small Business Administration recommends you make your milestones specific. For example, you could decide to increase business-to-business sales 30 percent, or to increase total sales 50 percent for a particular product line. If you've launched a new sales region, you might identify 10 top potential customers; the milestone is your regional sales team making presentations to eight of them. Each goal should have a deadline so your sales team has some pressure to perform.

Individuals

Each salesperson should have individual milestones within the overall sales plan. Individual milestones take into account the differences among your sales team. For example, a salesperson who makes a lot of calls but few sales could benefit from a milestone built around closing more often. One who closes well but doesn't make cold calls might be asked to contact five new customers.

Meeting the Milestones

Track progress toward the milestones by using a wall chart or a spreadsheet to show the distance your sales force still has to travel. If a salesperson doesn't reach her next milestone, work with her to identify the reasons and find ways to improve. If a salesperson succeeds, a reward or bonus is appropriate. Milestones represent above average achievement, and incentives encourage your staff to succeed. Whether your employee succeeds or fails, draw up a new milestone for the next sales cycle.

About the Author

A graduate of Oberlin College, Fraser Sherman began writing in 1981. Since then he's researched and written newspaper and magazine stories on city government, court cases, business, real estate and finance, the uses of new technologies and film history. Sherman has worked for more than a decade as a newspaper reporter, and his magazine articles have been published in "Newsweek," "Air & Space," "Backpacker" and "Boys' Life." Sherman is also the author of three film reference books, with a fourth currently under way.